Making the Rounds
by Sarah1281
Summary: In the aftermath of the opera and so many truths being exposed, Dana has thanks to give and relationships to mend.


When Dana next saw him, he was a strange mix of awkwardness and hesitation.

"Mayor Cardinal," he greeted her.

"Dana, Cecil," she corrected. "Surely you're not here for an official interview."

"Ah, no," he confirmed, not meeting her eyes. "I wanted to talk to you, after everything that happened."

"I thought you might."

Cecil took a deep breath. "It might be useless to say this now. It's hardly a show of trust now that I've had an actual confession from someone else."

Dana could feel herself softening. Not that she had ever been _that_ angry in the first place. Yes, it hurt that he thought she would do that to him but she had to admit that _someone_ was doing it to him and he had no better suspects than the mayor who he had been called to protect time and time again. Even she, who had been looking for other culprits, had never thought to suspect a part of a dragon Cecil was protecting her from. And it had been a hard year for him besides. She still remembered the state she had found her mother and brother in when she had returned form the Desert Otherworld and she hadn't been gone quite as long as Carlos.

"It's not meaningless."

"I'm sorry, Dana."

Dana smiled at him. "Thank you, Cecil. I accept your apology."

He stared at her. "Th-that's it? I spent months thinking you had bought me and controlled me to save you. I broke off our friendship and probably fell on the wrong side of slander and you were innocent all along and you just…forgive me?"

"Yes," she said simply.

He looked at a loss. "How?"

"Because you're my friend, Cecil."

He looked like she'd struck him.

"No, no, no. I didn't say that to hurt you. You stopped being my friend but I never stopped being yours."

If anything, he looked even more upset.

"It was different," she said softly. "Cecil, someone _bought_ you. You're a living, breathing person who never should have been put up for sale – and I have had a talk with the secret police about their definition of property – and I think we were all worried at first that Strexcorp bought you. And even when nothing happened as a result of the auction for a year, you always knew that someone owned you and you didn't even know who or why. And even if we had more pressing problems, you had to live with that."

Cecil shook his head. "Yes, that was…difficult. But we _all_ have difficult times. I'm the one who chose to blame you. Violet was quite right that I can't blame that on anyone else."

"Well it's his fault a little," Dana argued. "Without him secretly buying you and using you, there would have been no one to blame. Come on, Cecil. No one could have guessed it was him, even if looking back at 'Frank Chen' it was pretty clear he didn't support the attempts on my life. And with you only being used to save me…Well it makes sense for Violet thwarting the rest of him in hindsight but at the time it really looked like it was me. Or at least a member of my staff who answers directly to me."

"That's true now," Cecil agreed. "But I know better than to just suspect the most likely culprit. And during the auction you had no way of knowing you'd ever be mayor or need protection from the Faceless Old Woman who Secretly Lives in Your Home or most of Hiram McDaniels. You couldn't even know for sure you'd ever make it home. I should have known you wouldn't have needed to use me then."

"Back then, neither did Violet," Dana countered. "It was fair that Hiram would want a normal human disguise given all the times he's gone on the run but Violet and his 'just in case'? Maybe I had that same thought."

"But you didn't."

"But I could've."

"Are you seriously attempting to convince me of the validity of yourself as a suspect after we both knew for a fact that it wasn't you?" Cecil asked incredulously.

Dana thought about it. "You're right, that is weird. I just don't want you to beat yourself up over it. You were struggling and I was the obvious choice."

"I should have known you never would," Cecil insisted.

"Maybe," Dana allowed. "But that's _me_ , not someone in my position."

"You were one of my closest friends, Dana," he said seriously. "And I hated to lose that. I didn't think I had a choice-"

"If you were right about me, you wouldn't have," Dana interrupted. "You can't reasonably be friends with someone who would own you and lie about it and force you to do something you would have freely done anyway."

Cecil bowed his head. "I, uh, kind of expected you'd come clean after I said on the air that all you had to do was ask and I'd help protect you. Journalists must stay out of stories but exceptions can be made. I helped take down Strexcorp and I won't just let a friend die to preserve journalistic integrity."

Dana smiled sadly at him. "I know. And I figured you wanted me to confess and work through it but I didn't own you so I couldn't. You're a good friend, Cecil. A lot of people I knew before have gotten…awkward around me since I became mayor. But you never made me feel that way. I went from intern to expatriate to mayor and, though you always respected that, you never let it come between us."

"No, I just let paranoid accusations do that," Cecil said bitterly. "And it doesn't really matter how plausible my accusations were. I was wrong and you didn't deserve it. I told _everyone_ and I'm sure at least some of them believed me."

Dana cleared her throat. "Some did," she said delicately.

Cecil groaned and she could see him reddening before he put a hand in front of his face. "Oh, no. I _am_ sorry."

"Cecil, your boyfriend took me home at the expense of his own ability to get back here and I watched what that did to you for a year. I can forgive a few dirty looks."

"You didn't just not use me," Cecil said. "You respected my wish to stay out of this so much that, despite the fact it wasn't your fault I kept getting dragged in, you risked your life preventing me from having to get involved. Even if I would have wanted to save you this time."

"I had hoped that things weren't so bad between us that you would be sitting right there and would rather watch me die than save me," Dana admitted. "But you had saved me often enough and you were right about me. I am the mayor and I need to be able to protect myself. And how could I in good conscience know that my friend was being controlled and not try and stop it? If I had had any idea who owned you you know I would have done more but no one kept any records."

"I want to be friends again, Dana," Cecil told her. "I don't really know how to go about doing that. I've reconnected with friends I've drifted apart from but I've never destroyed a friendship like this before and I do not know how to fix it."

"I…" Dana trailed off, choosing her words carefully. "I think you're overthinking it, Cecil. You messed up, yes, but I never stopped thinking of you as a friend. I've never been accused of human trafficking before but, as mayor, I've been accused of all manner of other things. Some of them I'm ever guilty of. The Faceless Old Woman who No Longer Lives in My Home actually said that her and Hiram's constant attempts to kill me was proof of my unsuitability as mayor."

"Oh, she moved out?" Cecil asked, momentarily distracted. "I _had_ wondered why she didn't try to kill you at home."

"As I had wondered why she didn't try anything when you were on vacation. But I guess by that point maybe she had committed to the opera murder and didn't want to change her plans."

"I will never understand her," Cecil declared before sighing and shaking his head. "Dana, you might be right about my overthinking it. But I just don't know how to fix this and I don't know why you're being so kind about it. The fact that plenty of other people have accused you of doing terrible things, the fact that maybe you've had to do some terrible things, doesn't make what I did any better."

"No but you were also my only point of contact with Night Vale for months on end," Dana said. "And while that wasn't something any of us chose I can't brush it aside so easily. I don't see friendship as a light switch, Cecil. You don't turn a friendship back on. We're going to need time to work past this and we were still kind of finding our footing with my new status before this happened but as far as I'm concerned, we're still friends and we always were."

Cecil just stared at her for a moment before a small smile made its way across his face. "I knew there was a reason I voted for you."

Dana laughed. "Voted for me? Cecil, I wasn't even an option."

He shrugged. "Nobody I loved was being held hostage at the time and Carlos told me to stop voting for him. 'A scientist is apolitical', he said. Of course then he goes and complains whenever politicians don't do the right thing scientifically but I suppose it's really the principle of the matter."

"Well I thank you for your support then," Dana said, managing to look mayoral for about ten seconds before cracking up.

Cecil quickly followed suit.

"Seriously, this wasn't the path I ever imagined for myself but it makes sense with that vision of the future I saw," she said slowly. "And while in many ways I was happier _not_ knowing everything a mayor has to know and making the kind of decisions a mayor has to make, I'm also kind of glad no one else is in charge of these things."

"I know what you mean," Cecil agreed. "Pamela Winchell's inability to be retired without causing widespread death and destruction is making me really worry retroactively about her time in office."

"Well, we all came through it somehow," Dana said. "I know I don't really know Carlos very well but I am glad he's back. I think he had a better time in the Desert Otherworld than I did but it's still nothing compared to Night Vale."

"He realized that eventually," Cecil said, sounding satisfied. "He just got distracted by the science and, honestly, I knew that when I met him."

"And, even more than that, I'm glad he's back for your sake, Cecil. I was getting really worried about you at the end and I wanted to reach out but…" she trailed off lamely.

But Cecil nodded. "I know. And it's okay. I don't think I would have been very receptive to your attempts to comfort me anyway. All I would have seen was sheer nerve and hypocrisy in trying to make me feel better when a large part of me being upset was the fact that someone who I thought was you literally owned me."

"Still, those broadcasts…and I knew the broadcasts weren't telling the whole story. Pretty early on you had that horoscope about considering taking up drinking," Dana said. "And then you didn't even change your clothes when the fashion sphere came! You're lucky it took pity on you and didn't want to make your life any harder than it had to be."

Cecil looked mildly outraged. "I'll have you know that I looked amazing and was one of the most hip people there."

An image of Cecil on that day flashed through her mind. "That's one way of looking at it. Not a very accurate way but certainly a way."

"The sphere has spoken!"

Dana just smiled and shook her head. "And even beyond that, I would miss if you left. I know you have to do what's best for you but I'm glad you decided that that's here. I missed you and you didn't even go anywhere."

"I missed you, too," he said softly. "We should just agree right now that, no matter what else happens, we're not going to let silly things like mayorship or thinking one of us secretly owns the other come between us again."

Dana hesitated.

"Dana!"

"What? I'm just saying, it seems a little one-sided. I know _I'm_ not going to do anything but what if you do? Then I won't be able to get upset about that? You got to be mad at me for months!"

"It's not like I was _enjoying_ it," he said. "And I wouldn't do anything either. I know well how much that sort of betrayal stings."

"Even though I didn't actually betray you," Dana reminded him.

"Well it still hurt."

Slowly Dana nodded. She held out her hand. "Alright. No more letting Night Vale and its imperfections come between us."

Cecil took her hand and it was like a piece sliding back into place.

* * *

Dana would never tell Cecil but Steve Carlsberg was actually a very useful guy to know. She'd never tell Night Vale proper that, either, but for less personal and more political and government conspiracy reasons. In fact, he was so useful that she had hired him two weeks into her tenure as mayor.

She could have just asked for advice that he, generous and helpful soul that he was, would be happy to give her time and time again but that really would be taking advantage and Steve was just so happy to be able to help the mayor even if he had to keep it a secret.

Dana had never really given a lot of thought to Steve Carlsberg before she began interning at the radio station. Then it was impossible to ignore him and just how strongly Cecil felt about it. She didn't feel nearly as strongly about it as he did but she did agree all his claims of seeing answers in the sky and talking about things that were not meant to be talked about (that might even, terrifyingly enough, be true) was pretty weird.

Now she knows better. Now there's so much that she knows and can't say and it's nice to be in the company of one who understands. Not that the fact he really can't go around saying this kind of stuff has ever stopped Steve and it's really a wonder he hasn't been reeducated more before he became that guy who talks about things he shouldn't and are probably not (but really are) true.

She had been so naïve when she first became mayor. Everyone wondered to themselves why there was a dog park that people and dogs couldn't go in. Cecil had told her of the tales Carlos had told him about the dog parks in other cities that were built specifically for dogs and that people were allowed in. One of the first things she had tried to do was open up the dog park to people and dogs. She had never heard of a dog park before the finished product had been introduced to them all, three years ago now, but it made sense. A dog park. A park for dogs. A park dogs should most certainly be allowed. She had wandered into the dog park and been trapped for months. How had she not known?

The City Council had known. They had told her. And she couldn't tell anyone until Cecil told _everyone_ (or rather, Carlos did through Cecil) what exactly the dog park really was.

"Mayor Cardinal," Steve greeted her, as buoyant as ever. She didn't think she'd ever actually seen him in a bad mood which, given the constant frustrations of seeing things no one else did and not being believed, was really saying something. Even that time with Kevin it had really taken a lot to push him over the edge. "I didn't really get a chance to say this that night but I'm really glad that you weren't eaten by a dragon."

It was funny. Except for two (five?) obvious exceptions, Dana was pretty sure the entire town was happy she hadn't been eaten by a dragon. Even those that didn't personally know or like her didn't want to deal with another election so soon and the death of public officials was very unpopular. She knew, even before they said it, that they were glad she survived. And yet just about every person she had talked to since then had told her all about how happy they were that she was still among the living.

"I don't know if I would have been without you," Dana told him. "Thank you, Steve."

He blushed. "I didn't do anything."

"You warned me that Frank Chen wasn't who he said he was and Hiram McDaniels hadn't left Night Vale," Dana countered. "I was always on the lookout for the Faceless Old Woman but if I hadn't been prepared for Hiram then who knows what might have happened."

"I just…I don't know how nobody else saw it," Steve said. "He was literally a five-headed dragon. He was clearly eighteen-feet tall and not five foot eight. Frank's body was found and Hiram has used that alias before. His other four heads were constantly talking every conversation he had. His only disguise was putting a bowtie on!"

"It was a very convincing bowtie," Dana said. "When you lay it all out like that it does seem silly, I agree, and I think we all feel foolish that we didn't see it but…we didn't. My staff and I didn't. If you hadn't warned me…maybe you didn't have anything to do with stopping Hiram directly but you still played a great role in keeping Night Vale's mayor safe."

Steve blushed. "I just…I'm glad that I could help. And I'm glad that you let me help. When Pamela Winchell was mayor she never really needed my help but I don't know that she would have let me if she did. People often don't."

"People are…" Dana started, trailing off. "It's hard, you know. The things you see, they're so often very different than what we expect. When you believe the same things we do then it doesn't really stand out but when it's different…"

"I know," Steve agreed, nodding. "It's like shouting into the void, being the only one to know the things I know. The only one to see the things I see. And while sometimes I know that it's just people sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to admit to knowing the same things I know, sometimes they truly don't. Abby's wonderfully supportive, of course, but she doesn't see things the way I do. But not everyone would talk their brother down – especially one as persuasive as Cecil – when he was actually right about me having done something to make calling off our wedding mandatory."

"Cecil is a lot more flexible these days," Dana said.

"Did you hear him in his last show?" Steve asked, beaming. "He mentioned me twice! _Twice_! And he didn't start insulting me or complaining about me once!"

"That might have just been the mood he was in, finally having Carlos back and deciding to stay after all," Dana cautioned. "But either way, I am happy for you, Steve. You deserve a break from only ever being mentioned on the radio to be ridiculed."

Steve shrugged. "I don't mind. I understand and at least he's mentioning me at all. Besides, it makes moments like these so much better!"

"I didn't know Cecil back then, of course, but I listened to the radio. It's funny; I didn't notice the changes when they were happening but I've gone back and listened to some old broadcasts and it's like he's a completely different person. I'm glad for the change, even if I know he's had to go through some pretty hard times to get him there. It's why I can't really be mad at Carlos for being gone so long even when he didn't have to be. I think he needed his little Night Vale revelation."

"We can only hope," Steve said. "But it is good to have somebody who believes me about some of this and will admit that, if only in private. So while I may be helping you, I'd like to thank you for helping me as well."

"The thing is," Dana told him, "you're usually right about these things. In fact, while I don't believe you on everything – I certainly believe in the Smiling God or at least acknowledge its existence without coming anywhere close to worshipping it – I don't think I've ever seen you proven wrong. Statistically speaking, you have to be wrong about at least some things. You have so many unconventional beliefs, after all, and some of them come from better foundation than others. But even so, you have an amazing track record with these things. At least half of what you say are things that I _know_ to be true. So why is it so hard to believe you when you tell me things like Hiram McDaniels hasn't fled town after all and the person assuring us all that he left is actually him trying to throw us all off the trail?"

"Probably because if you somehow don't realize that 'Frank Chen' is actually just Hiram McDaniels somehow tricking people into thinking he's a normal human when literally all he does is put on a reportedly convincing bowtie then it's a little difficult to believe," Steve said. "I know that if someone walked up to me and told me that you were actually an eighteen-foot-tall five-headed dragon but I couldn't tell because of your bowtie, I don't think I'd be very open to the idea."

"I mean, it's not like I'm even wearing a bowtie," Dana said.

Steve smiled. "Well, there's that, too. I have a hard time believing some of the things I find out, too. Like when I found out that the moon was actually hundreds of thousands of miles above us in space and that astronauts had gone there…wow did that take me awhile to process. But somehow, despite living in Night Vale my whole life, I've just never had the ability that comes so easily to other people to pretend until I believe it."

"As Night Vale's mayor, I don't think I want to live in a town where nobody could do that," Dana said. "But just the same, I do think we need somebody like you. And I'm not just saying that because I might very well have been eaten by a dragon if I hadn't been prepared to try and defend myself long enough for the violet head to force them to retreat."

"I'm just glad to know I have a purpose," Steve said. "For so long, it felt like I was crazy. I saw the arrows in the sky. They explain _everything_."

She knew that they did. She had asked him to be very specific about the things he saw. And while she hadn't felt the need to share what he had said with anyone else, it had all lined up well enough with what she knew now that even the new information she knew to be true. She didn't know why it was there or why he was the only one to see it. She didn't know if it was even possible for him to share the knowledge. Certainly she knew all – probably at any rate – of what it said but she had never seen the writing. Who even knew if it was possible for him to make others see? She knew he wanted Janice to but as much as he loved her she wasn't blood so if it was something to do with that then that would be no help.

"But no matter how obvious something is, if no one believes it then over time you start to doubt," Steve said. "Nothing is easier to doubt than your own senses. What do you do when you see a five-headed dragon barely making an effort to pretend to be a human and no one else can see it? What's more likely, that everyone else is truly fooled by a bowtie or that you're just crazy?"

"That's the problem with logic," Dana said reasonably. "It's all well and good on paper but in a place like Night Vale or the Desert Otherworld it often falls short. Carlos hadn't tried to contact Cecil for weeks when he first ended up in the Desert Otherworld because logic dictated he wouldn't be able to use his phone and he needed to conserve the battery. But neither of those things ended up being true. I can't promise that you're going to be right about everything, Steve, or that there won't ever be consequences for knowing these things. But sometimes you need to give yourself a little credit. Sometimes Don Quixote tilting at windmills that are really five-headed dragons in a very convincing windmill costume."

"I don't agree with everything that happens in Night Vale, always," Steve said slowly. "And honestly I don't know if I would have voted for you if I knew that you were in the running for mayor. But I'm going to vote for you next time. And while I have had some serious reservations in the past about pulses from the Hidden Gorge deciding our future, I do think they made a good choice with you. And you know that anything I can do to help, I'll do it."

Dana smiled at him. "I do know that. And while I may not understand why or how you see all these things that none of us can see, I think whoever or whatever gave you that gift instead of someone else made the right choice, too."

* * *

Dana was a little apprehensive about going to go see Hiram McDaniels in the aftermath of his most recent attempt on her life. She was going to be protected, of course, but accidents did happen and the Sheriff's Secret Police hadn't had the best record when dealing with her two would-be killers. Honestly, she had no interest in seeing about 80 percent of Hiram but she felt that she owed a little something to the 20 percent that had literally attacked itself bravely trying to save someone she had barely even spoken to. Oh, she had had plenty of conversations with Hiram but that usually meant talking to his gold head and having her words commented on by the others. That's what it was like for _everyone_ talking to him, as far as she knew, until that time Cecil had somehow managed to catch the violet head alone and it had explained about Lot 37.

She couldn't say that she was happy about someone literally buying and using her friend or that this had led to all that pain and anger between her and Cecil but she knew that hadn't been Violet's intention. And the motives turned out to be a lot more selfless than she had expected. Sure, he hadn't bought Cecil specifically to save her since she had been a long way from mayor at the time and 'just in case' could really mean anything but Cecil hadn't been used once until the time came to save her life from the rest of him. If that was the sort of thing he felt the need to have a backup plan for then she could understand. Given the things she had heard of Hiram's history of needing to constantly flee, it made all the sense in the world that he would think he had to be ready lest the rest of his body drive him from Night Vale through reckless impulsivity. And while things were bad for them now, if Dana had been killed there would be no way to stay in Night Vale regardless of what the other heads seemed to think. Murder might not be as big of a deal in Night Vale as she had heard it was in another parts of the world, even if it was illegal now, but there was a difference between killing a news blogger and killing the mayor.

When she reached Hiram's cell, she saw the violet head sticking out of the little hole constructed specifically for it because it was not under arrest. The other heads were talking amongst themselves but stopped when they saw her and started growling instead.

"Hello," she said, trying not to sound as uncomfortable as she felt.

"Mayor Cardinal," the gold head greeted her, congenial enough. "I, uh, hope there won't be any lingering unpleasantness over recent events."

"You're asking if I'm going to be holding a grudge over your repeated murder attempts?" Dana asked rhetorically. "An excellent question. I have one of my own. Are you done trying to kill me?"

"I was never _really_ trying to kill you," Gold claimed. "I mean, come on. I am literally a five-headed dragon. Don't you think if I wanted you dead by now you'd be dead?"

"I'd be quite dead by now if a certain someone hadn't used Cecil to save me time and again," she pointed out.

"Traitor!" the green head hissed.

"I know you think I laid siege to City Hall that one time," Gold said. "But really, I was just exercising my First Amendment rights to peaceful protest."

"Peaceful?" she repeated. "You were breathing fire at anyone who tried to enter."

"Yeah, _at_ not _on_ ," he said. "And, uh, peaceful is kind of a tricky word. Can mean all sorts of things."

Dana wasn't so sure about that, at least not when it came to breathing fire at people. "And then there was your confession-"

"Which was taken completely out of context," Gold said. "Which will all come out at my trial."

"Never mind that I actually saw you try to kill me at the opera," Dana said.

Gold shook his head and the three other arrested heads shook theirs as well. "No, no. I can see where, uh, you might get confused but actually I was supposed to do that. It was my aria, you see. It was actually supposed to be a quintet aria but my purple head over here ruined that. He gets stage fright, you see."

"No one believes your lies," Violet declared, sticking his nose up.

"You could call him your violet head," Dana said disapprovingly. "It's only respectful."

"Nobody else ever does," Gold pointed out. "Even though I know he's mentioned that on the radio before Cecil's review of the opera."

He had a good point. "Well now we do. And you presumably knew about his wish more than we did."

"Well maybe if he hadn't ruined my aria I would be more obliging," Gold hinted. "He's always causing trouble."

"I am the only one trying not to cause trouble!"

"That was not an aria," Dana said flatly.

Gold fixed her with a skeptical look. "Do you have any idea what an aria is?"

"Well, no," Dana admitted. "But I'm pretty sure that wasn't it."

"Agree to disagree," Gold said mildly. "And if it turns out I'm wrong then someone really should have let me know. That's terribly sloppy, letting someone go out there to do an aria without clearing up what one actually is."

Dana shook her head. "I did not come here to listen to you half-heartedly try to convince me that you weren't actually trying to kill me."

"Then why did you come here?" Gold asked.

Dana turned to the violet head. "I came down here to see you, actually. To thank you for saving me. Not just that night but several times in the months before this."

Violet looked embarrassed but pleased. "I know that you were getting frustrated with Cecil blaming you for my interference."

Dana nodded. "I didn't appreciate him blaming me but I understand why he did it. And while I would have liked it if you had told one of us that it was you, I understand how that could be difficult given your, uh, _situation_. And how letting your other heads know what you were doing would decrease the effectiveness with which you could act."

"I did want to be mayor," Violet admitted. "Even though, truthfully, I have severe doubts about how the five of us would do at leading."

" _We_ do not have a problem coming to a consensus," the blue head spoke up. "And you never used to."

"That is true," Violet admitted. "I let head unity overcome my own reservations about our actions but no more. Even had we become mayor and I let them do what they wanted, those actions are often foolish and short-sighted. And the Faceless Old Woman has her own set of drawbacks. I believe you are a good mayor and you do not deserve to die because forces outside of your control chose you to be in power."

"Thank you," she said. "I don't know if I even want to be mayor but I know I can do a lot of good and that's just how politics work. Despite her completely voluntary desire for retirement, if Pamela Winchell's name had been given to us by the Hidden Gorge then she'd have no choice but to come back and serve another term."

"It kind of makes you wonder why we bother with elections at all," the grey head said, sighing.

"Well, we do live in a pseudo-democracy," Dana said. "Voting is our right." She turned back to the violet head. "Are you doing okay in there? Unfortunately, you can't really move too far from the cell since you are attached to four heads that are under arrest but I hope that that hole is helping."

"It is," Violet said. "I was worried at first that my other heads would try to use the hole to escape but it's not quite big enough for that. They don't seem to want anything to do with it at all as they feel I only got it for being a traitor."

"I'm just saying, purple head, that you gave us no indication that you were going to be working against us all these months," Gold said. "And you are literally the only reason we didn't succeed in killing the mayor over there."

Dana decided not to point out that he was once again confessing to her attempted murder. He'd probably just deny it anyway and it wasn't as though they were at court.

"I voted against the plan!"

"You almost always vote against the plan," Gold pointed out. "But you've never actively tried to undermine us before. Or have you?"

"No," the violet head said. "I should have but I didn't. And maybe I should have told you that I was going to try and stop you this time. But the time for hiding is over. I will not let you carry out any more of your foolish plans."

"See, purple head, it's things like this that make you the clear winner of least popular head," Gold said.

"Why do you get to be the gold head while I have to be the purple head?" Violet asked. "If I can't be violet why don't you have to be yellow?"

The gold head looked down at itself. "Well, I'm clearly not a yellow head. I'm gold. You just look sort of purple. I'm not an artist."

"It is my right to be the violet head if I wish to!"

"We do agree with that," Dana said. "And we're trying to remember to call you that."

The violet head nodded at her. "Thank you."

"I just…I can't even imagine," Dana said softly. "It always seemed to me, a normal human with a normal number of heads, that it would be hard to have four other people controlling your body. Or…are you different people? We call all of you together Hiram McDaniels but you have such different personalities and I'm afraid I'm not a big expert on beings with multiple heads."

"It's a bit of a philosophical question," the blue head said. "Legally, I believe we are one entity although that was challenged somewhat when only four-fifths of us were arrested."

"Only four-fifths of you were guilty," Dana said. "Violet, you may get a metal."

Violet smiled. "I might like that."

"But, as I was saying, it seems hard enough to live like that in general. It might be easier if that's all you've ever known or it might make it harder. I don't know. But living with everyone but you disagreeing with you and always forcing you to flee? I can't imagine," Dana said, shaking her head. "I've been trying to and I just can't. And I heard what you said about Night Vale, how much you love it and how you want to settle down here. I, uh, understand why right now that dream seems pretty distant. But Night Vale is home to all those who want her to be. The universe itself tried telling Carlos that Night Vale wasn't his home and if he could just ignore the laws of the universe and come back anyway then why can't you?"

"Well, most of me is probably not done trying to kill you," he pointed out.

"We're really done trying to kill you," Gold said. "Not that we were ever actually trying to kill you in the first place. But if we were then we're done now. You know how it is. Either way, no killing of any mayors are coming from me."

"I appreciate that," Dana said dryly. "There's going to be some legal trouble and it will probably unfairly inconvenience you. But we're doing the best we can to act in accordance to your clear innocence and I have to believe that one day this weird vendetta the rest of you has against me will pass."

"How can you be so sure?" Violet asked.

Dana shrugged. "Because it has to. They and the Faceless Old Woman can't be trying to kill me _forever_ and I hope I do survive this. Everything passes. Back when I was trapped in the Desert Otherworld I thought it would never stop but it did. And the reign of Strex ended. And Carlos came back. Cecil was able to actually talk about Steve Carlsberg multiple times without making it clear how much he hated him although I don't know if that will last. Every storm passes eventually, even if it leaves a lot of damage in its wake. And you're going to get through this."

"Thank you," Violet said. "It's nice to hear sometimes that your efforts are appreciated."

"I'm Night Vale's mayor," Dana told him. "It's my job to see these things and to care."

That set the other four heads off on a loud discussion of how much more _they_ cared but it didn't matter. Night Vale – mad, impossible Night Vale – was her home and her responsibility and she still didn't know if she was the right woman for the job but it was her job and, so help her, she was going to do it _right_.


End file.
